


Cheat the Hangman

by dixiehellcat



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A little angst, And a happy ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Don't worry it gets better, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Iron Family, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Lives, alien-human friendship, and Natasha Romanov and Bruce Banner, friendly alien ignorant of human ways, the universe honors Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: An alien entity composed of energy observes the Battle of the Compound and Tony's last stand against Thanos. It rescues his soul at the moment of his body's death and they travel the universe together, until they return to Earth, ten years after the endgame.





	Cheat the Hangman

The energy drew it, as energy always did. This was one it had sensed only a few times in its long, long existence, the union of six forces older even than it was. It could feel their widely scattered beings, as it did most of the rest of the universe, in passing. It drifted along between the stars, a bodiless mass without shape or form, making casual note of the more remarkable deeds of the mortals, but not sparing a great deal of regard, until something brought all those forces together. 

A physical being had obtained all of the Six, the points that mortals called the Infinity Stones. The entity thought that was a silly name, as much as it ever really thought about anything that mortals did and exerted any effort in passing judgement. They weren’t _stones_ , whatever stones were exactly (really, sometime it supposed it should learn what mortals meant by all these words; not anytime soon, there was no rush, but it would be useful to know a second language besides that of pure thought). Nor did they have anything to do with _infinity_ , which both existed and didn’t exist at the same time. They were calcified elements of life, each tied to a vital force of being. Any one of them possessed tremendous power. All six, held by some mortal—that was absurdly reckless behavior. The entity wasn’t about to try to tell said mortal that, of course. Let it suffer the consequences of its own foolishness.

Except that it didn’t. The entity felt the swell of force released, and then the universe itself cried out in one long scream. The entity did not know emotion, but it had learned enough, when it paid attention, to discern pain, certainly; and this was pain, horrible pain of a kind it had never witnessed. It moved through and into various worlds, and everywhere, the agony was the same. The life energy the entity subsisted on was halved, because the population was halved. What would possess a mortal to use the power of the very cosmos to rip the cosmos in twain?

Half-starved, the entity drifted, until it sensed the stones united in activity again, and then—nothing. If the slaying of half the life in the universe had been unique, the slaying of the Six themselves was impossible to imagine. When the entity could spare a thought, it might have wished to have been present for that; on occasion, when it had come upon a mortal with a particularly intense energy field but a failing physical vessel, it had taken that field into itself. What little it knew of mortal ways had largely come from those incidents, from the periods when it had a traveling companion, before its stronger field had absorbed the essence that had been the mortal’s. Had it been nearby when the stones were destroyed, with all that semi-sentient power released in an instant, it might well have been able to gorge itself. 

Wishing, though, like other fancies, was not a part of its thought processes. What was was, and what was not was not. What was, now, was a universe weakened and sickened, and the entity with it. The worlds it called on used words like _sad_ and _lost_ and _despairing_ , and the energies that traveled with those words were no worthy fodder to feed on.

The entity had learned not to make predictions, not to expect or anticipate, because mortals—well, one of their primary qualities was the ability to do that which seemed to make no sense at all. That seeming, the entity had concluded, must be the deceit, though, because when one of them acted in an absurd way, they often appeared to understand perfectly what they were doing and the motivation behind it. The entity had long since concluded that it was just a mortal thing that it might never comprehend, and resolved to go its own way without heeding them.

That philosophy failed when the mortal called Thanos had snapped his fingers (whatever _fingers_ were and however one might snap them) and made half of all life cease to be, and then forced the Six to make themselves cease to be. It failed again when the entity sensed the stones’ return. How, how could this be? For all its determination over millennia to remain aloof, this was getting ridiculous. The entity set out to follow the energy signatures—all were together, again, and they were oddly different from what they had been. The mortals it had absorbed would have called it curiosity. The entity just called it self-preservation.

The entity tracked the stones to a small planet, blue and white and brown; full of life, yet not as full as it probably had been before the halving. Just before it pinpointed their location on the sphere, that swell it had experienced twice before mounted again, and the world beneath it, the universe beyond it, burst forth with the return of life. Even for the entity, which had lived through so much, it was unprecedented and uplifting.

The entity’s concept of time was fluid, and it was rarely concerned with its flow, but it was certain only a short period had passed before all-out war broke out among mortals on the small blue planet. The center of the conflict seemed to be the very spot where the Infinity Stones had just been discharged. This was cause for alarm, if the entity was capable of such. Instantly, it willed itself to that place and found mortal beings dying all around, on the ground and in the air above it. 

The largest in size, its physical form wrapped in metal, fought to seize the stones from numerous smaller beings that used their speed to evade it. The entity approved; the small ones were wise. Why did the large one wish the stones, though? The entity was unpracticed at reading the wills of mortals, and the fuss and negative energy made it harder, but with effort, it learned the truth.

This was the mortal called Thanos, who had slain half the universe. Somehow, the small mortals had reclaimed the stones, and returned the dead to life, and Thanos was enraged. His will had been thwarted, and in his pique, he declared his intent now was to unmake the entire universe and remake it more to his liking.

The entity felt a jolt through its mass, like a shock of lightning, and identified it as the closest it had ever come to feeling that which mortals called _fear_. If the universe ceased to be, would it cease to be also? If a new universe was remade, a new iteration of the entity might also be, but it would not be this one, with what it had learned over time and through space. The entity did not want that. Besides, it would be an utter waste of all the energy of all the souls, both here and yonder. In horror it watched this mad giant lift the Six aloft—only to be stopped by a ferocious attack from one of the smaller mortals. They tussled briefly before Thanos flung him aside and made to execute his sentence again.

Except the entity knew something he didn’t. It had felt the stones transfer. Thanos would slay no one on this battlefield, because his attacker, the red and gold metal around his body shredded, held the Six. All he could do was hurl them out of reach, though. He could do nothing with them; even the entity was no match for the Infinity Stones’ joined power. And yet the entity hovered in disbelief, as the little figure raised them. He was madder than Thanos.

After reading Thanos’ intent, it was easier for the entity to touch this one, and what it found there was incredible. The little one was not mad; he willed the stones to end this clash, willed Thanos and his war out of existence. He had to know the cost, but still he persisted, to save a universe he would never again see. The entity could not, in all its long journeying, recall encountering anything braver done so calmly or irrationally. It would be a waste indeed, it thought, to let this strength perish from the universe.

It could not keep the force of the stones from overloading the fragile physical form of the fighter—Human, they called themselves. It stayed, though, and held onto the wielder of the Six, through the buffeting of the unleashed power, and when the wielder’s soul slipped from his irredeemably damaged body, the entity drew him to itself, as gently as it knew how. It wrapped him in its mass and held him safe, and as the mortals gathered around the shell left behind, it rose from the planet it had learned was called Earth by these inhabitants, bearing with it a matchless treasure, the spirit that called itself Tony Stark.

+++

He didn’t forget who he was, exactly, but the recollection receded in the face of his new life. The universe was vaster and more amazing than even he could have imagined, and the creature that called him companion kept him safe through it all. It did not seem to understand emotions as such, but when his metaphorical heart quailed and his nonexistent knees shook, it understood that he needed comforting and protecting. It enfolded him in the force of its immaterial body, and sang him a song of power that reverberated within his soul like a plucked guitar string.

There were long periods of time when he really didn’t think about his past, didn't even think about having been Tony Stark once, caught up now in the positive vibrations of energy pulsing through a restored universe. Dozens of planets and scores of life-forms were out here returning to their lives, good and bad, and he thirsted to know them, wanted to see them all. The entity he nicknamed the Blob (he tried to explain why, early in their association, but when a creature didn’t grok emotions, how could you possibly explain B-horror movies?) seemed to enjoy his enthusiasm, as much as it was able to really enjoy anything. Satisfaction was a better description, maybe; he gathered it had held itself aloof from squishy mortals until the whole meshuggah with Thanos and the Stones, and had only gotten interested then in hopes that the whole universe wouldn’t go poof. Enlightened self-interest was a thing, after all, and not a half bad one either; it had stood Tony himself in good stead over the years.

The Blob didn’t grasp that concept, or, really, much of anything. Tony tried to teach it as much as he could, and the amorphous cloud of energy gave the impression of being downright grateful. Tony loved it, really; he hadn’t had many interactions in his life with a mind that could completely keep up with his. It was especially intrigued by language, which made sense, since it didn’t have anybody to talk to, except on the rare occasions it saved some poor sap from the Big Sleep, the way it had Tony.

When he asked _why me_ , the Blob did the best impression of hemming and hawing that an inchoate accumulation of electromagnetic force could do. Finally, in its equivalent of a mumble, it conveyed a memory of uncomprehending awe; it didn’t get why, knowing the Infinity Stones would fry him like overdone bacon, he still had used them to snap Thanos’ big purple ass away.

Tony tried to explain that too, the awareness that he and the Avengers and their allies had had only one shot at mending the torn fabric of the universe, and his own grim determination that Morgan and Pepper were going to be safe, dammit, even if he wasn’t alive to see it. Poor Blob, it had nobody, so it didn’t understand loving a spouse or a child; but when the remembering got too much for Tony, it was surprisingly good at consolation. Over time, it even learned how to change the subject, how to find a new world for them to float around and observe and feed lightly from, to distract him until the lost past drifted away and he fixed his awareness on the here and now.

On one of those side treks, they came upon a statue of the Iron Man suit with the bejeweled gauntlet thrust skyward. in the local language (Tony figured it out after a little while, probably a few hours, though keeping track of time lapses without a StarkWatch or sundial or something physical was a real bitch) its inscription read TONY STARK, THE GOLDEN AVENGER, OUR WORLD THANKS YOU.

He tried to focus on wondering how the natives, who looked like six-legged unicorns, had engraved the thing, or whether they had traded for it, or what; but his thoughts kept going back to that house by the lake, where he had left his heart. It took everything he had (and that was a lot, after however long he had spent since his death trekking around the ether with his cloudy co-tenant) to push that aside. 

But then, on the very next planet, they were hanging around the upper atmosphere ready to score some likely energy for a snack, and who came hurtling past but Carol Danvers, looking all tough and beautiful. A few planets later, they found locals who venerated a psychopomp goddess with fiery red hair and a familiar face, and whose solar system held a regular science conference dedicated to Bruce ‘Hulk’ Banner. And two planets after _that_ , floating through a busy marketplace run by skeletal orange folk, Rocket and Nebula strolled by. The raccoon was bitching about something, as he always did, and Nebula gave him the finger, and _god_ , Tony remembered teaching her that, how puzzled and then amused she had been by all of its connotations. She had demonstrated to Rhodey later and he had laughed so hard he had to run to the nearest bathroom at the compound before he pissed his pants…

If Tony could have wept, he would have. 

The Blob didn’t understand, except maybe it did, because Tony kept repeating _I want to go home_ , and he couldn’t stop himself. It swaddled him in its energy, and didn’t point out all the sights along the way as it usually did, until it called his attention to the world it came to stillness above. That beautiful, vulnerable little blue world: he missed it so much, and knowing it was safe was suddenly such a poor substitute for having it. 

Why, with all of the universe at their disposal, he wanted to return to the place where his body had suffered and died, the Blob could not make any sense of; but it had brought him here, and he expressed his gratitude as best he could. They eased down toward the surface, and Tony started assessing. It was a minor shock to learn ten years had elapsed since his death, but a bigger one to see that graffiti and little shrines to Iron Man still dotted cities and towns and farmland and, well, practically everyplace. It was, if he admitted it, just a little embarrassing. For the sake of his fictional egotism, he decided to pretend he liked it.

As a noncorporeal entity, he and the Blob could access the internet straight from the tap, no need for a clunky computer interface. Bruce had his own TV show, the Bill Nye of the next generation. Clint had vanished from records, which probably meant he was living the dream on his farm; Wanda had also, but where she was he had no guess. Likewise, there was no trace of Strange online, but hell, he was a wizard; Tony figured the down-low was part of his job description. 

Sam was Captain America now ( _what the hell happened to Steve?_ Tony thought, not that Wilson wouldn’t do a hell of a job in the stars and stripes) and was working closely with Bucky. That was great; one of Tony’s biggest regrets was never getting the chance to make peace with Barnes, to explain he never blamed the guy for what the Winter Soldier had been forced to do. A statue stood in the park where the Avengers’ compound had once been, in honor of Natasha. She would have scoffed and probably tried to deface it, Tony imagined. Thor’s pal Valkyrie was running New Asgard; Tony hoped Point Break hadn’t drunk himself to death. Wakanda was flourishing.

Scott was on Hank Pym’s payroll, and wonder of wonders, Pym had some major business deals with SI. Tony supposed saving the universe could wipe out a lot of old resentments. This was getting too close to the pain, though, and Tony knew he needed to pull back, to take the Blob and go. His life as Tony Stark was over; he should be thankful he had any kind of life at all, and he was, truly. The chance to see the universe as no mortal had was a gift beyond measure. The Blob had shown him what lay ahead, that over time he would gradually lose more of his human memories until he became a part of the entity itself. That…was okay, it had to be okay. For all its proclaimed disinterest, the Blob was, frankly, a kind creature, that trod softly on the cosmos, and teaching it and learning from it for a while, then resting within it, the way Pepper had told him to do, was a hell of a deal. It really was.

No amount of trying to persuade himself to turn away could keep Tony from tracing the paths of info online, to find that Stark Industries was bigger than it ever had been, and more socially responsible and active. Pepper still ran it with a velvety iron hand, with Happy by her side, and now with help from—Harley Keener? A spark of happiness about that kindled in his consciousness, but was crushed when he ran across gossip column reports about Pepper seen out with this man or that. She had moved on, as she had to, but that didn’t stop the hurt.

The Blob felt his pain. _Why?_ It asked, using the words he had taught it (he was so proud of it; it didn’t even know how fucking old it was, and it was still eager to learn new things). _Physical beings shouldn’t wish hurt on themselves. Why do you search out these things that cause you distress?_

Tony didn’t really know how to explain that. _I love them,_ he told it, even though he knew it didn’t grok love. _I need to know what they’re doing, know that they’re okay. If I miss them, that’s on me._

He pushed on. Rhodey had retired a couple of years earlier as a brigadier general, and was serving as a presidential advisor. Tony could see his Platypus in such a position; he was smooth like that. Of Morgan, he found little trace on the web; Pepper was guarding her privacy, as he expected. 

Peter Parker had a low-key (surprisingly) social media presence; he held several lucrative patents and dabbled in photography. Spider-Man, on the other hand, was high-profile, and it looked like he had slid into the spot New Yorkers had reserved for a hometown superhero. The kid had done well. Tony was pleased. Time to go. Time to… _I need to see them. Can we, please? Just a look in. I’ll take you to a Yankees game afterwards; you’ll get well fed there, I promise, always plenty of energy out in the Bronx. I’ll even drive._

Nonplussed, the Blob acquiesced. Tony had never led them before, but the path up to the lake house was as familiar as his hands once had been to him. In the span of a few thoughts, they were there. The late summer sun glinted off the water. Not much looked different, other than a good-sized shed behind the main house. The Blob liked the negative ions that filled the air, so it wasn’t unhappy with their destination. Tony guided them around, scoping the place out, taking it all in, remembering the days playing with Morgan, tinkering, teaching Pepper to use her suit. Damn, he didn’t want to lose those memories.

Suddenly the house door slammed and a slim figure shot out and down the steps toward the shed. Long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and skinny ankles showed above the ratty tennis shoes the feet were shoved into. If Tony had still had a body, he would have lost his breath altogether. Barely daring, he followed. Those awful yellow plaid pants paired with a worn Police tour shirt—those were his, dammit, how fucking old were those things? He moved past her and looked back, at her excited face, half still a child and half the woman she was growing into. _Morgoona, my baby girl, look at you._

She unlocked the shed and bounced inside. It was a workshop of course, hers, but filled with things Tony recognized. Rescue stood ready in a plexiglass alcove in one corner. In another sat DUM-E, silent. Morgan patted him as she passed, but he didn’t respond. That worried Tony.

She started talking, about some gadget that sat on a table, and FRIDAY’s voice replied. Tony faltered; he had thought he would be content just to see her, but now, face to, okay, not-face, it didn’t heal or soothe him. Instead, it only hurt worse. He wanted so desperately to reach out, to let her know he still lived and still loved her, but he couldn’t. If he did, she would tell Pep; and Pep was moving on, and he was glad, he really was, but fuck, how he missed her. How could he ever have gone so long without thinking of his Ms Potts, her touch, her smile, the way she had tried to keep up a brave front as he died. He could almost feel the tears he could no longer shed, running down the cheeks he didn’t have.

 _Another mortal approaches_ , the Blob informed him just as a rap on the door frame sounded. Nick Fury, of all people, stepped over the threshold. He looked a little thinner and more wrinkled, but otherwise not all that different from the last time Tony had seen him more than a decade before. Anger rippled through Tony’s essence; what the fuck was he doing here? Shock joined the anger when Morgan just looked over her shoulder, smiled and said, “Hey, Uncle Nick. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I can’t hitch a ride to come check on my favorite girl?”

“Don’t kid a kidder. I know Aunt Carol is your favorite girl.”

“Not my favorite college-bound little genius girl. You about packed up to head for MIT?”

“Yep. I met my roommate the other day too! She’s really cool. She’s from Oakland. Dad was, like, her hero as a kid, but she got into the outreach program the Wakandan Science Institute set up out there, and Princess Shuri kind of took her under her wing. Uncle Rhodey says we may wreak more havoc than he and Dad did.”

Fury hummed. “How’s the energy doohickey coming?”

“Only you could make ‘energy doohickey’ sound so serious,” she teased. “It’s coming along well! I think I’ve got it able to detect the thirteen primary forms of energy, and I’m working on an expansion for dark energy—”

Fury was picking her brain, and she didn’t know… _God DAMN it, no, you are not sucking my child into your web!_ Tony would have swung at him, if he had had fists to clench. As it was, he had never in the time since his body’s death felt so helpless and outraged, and he felt more than saw the Blob reach out and shove the spymaster back a few steps. “Whoa! What was that, Morgan? You testing out new repulsors on your ol’ buddy?” Fury sputtered.

Morgan frowned. “No, I’m building in a reversed-polarity capacity, so I can emit energy as well as perceive it, but I don’t have that activated right now. Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?” she added with an arch half-grin.

 _Hey, I appreciate the backup, but let’s not_ , Tony told the Blob. _I can’t—we can’t let them know we’re here—_

The Blob wasn’t really listening, though. Instead, it was stretching pseudopods toward Morgan’s contraption, which started to peep and flash. “What the—these are some crazy anomalous readings,” she muttered and moved in to examine readouts. Tony wrestled the extrusions back, ignoring the Blob’s annoyance. If he touched her, he could not force himself away. They needed to go, now, but he couldn’t leave her alone with Fury. 

“Amazing where you mad scientists get your ideas. Didn’t you say this whole project came about when you and Parker were making fun of some old ghost hunting TV show?”

Morgan nodded absently, half her face practically pressed against the device. “Seriously, Uncle Nick, why _are_ you here?”

“Seriously, an old man can’t just check on a young lady he cares very much about?” Another memory Tony had almost lost rolled back, of standing in the Bartons’ barn, of Fury saying something very similar to him. Maybe this time, too, Fury was as close to on the level as he ever got. “Actually, your mom sent me to haul you in for supper. Somebody’s here you may want to see.”

Oh shit, Tony could see this coming from ten light-years away: Pepper finally met a guy she wanted to introduce Morgan to. “Okay!" Morgan nodded. "Tell her I’ll be there in a minute, just let me tweak a setting or two and figure out where these readings are going off track.” Time to go, all right…one more minute with his baby, just one more, and then he would leave, when she went to the house.

Morgan being Tony’s child, one minute was not one minute where science was concerned. Tony hovered, looked at her from every possible angle, and kept nudging the Blob back from touching anything (although he had to admit it was hard not to go check on DUM-E). It was intrigued by these little mortals, it indicated, and by Tony’s strong reactions to them, so it complied. _Besides,_ it noted, with as much humor as Tony had ever felt it attempt, _we have no timetable_ …It paused, as if its attention was diverted, then it added, _The one you disliked returns, with another mortal, and another._

Sure enough, Fury came back into the shed—with Pepper, and Peter. Tony was rocked by emotion; how the fuck had Fury gotten his claws into the kid too? Not that he was a kid anymore; he was taller and more solid, though his face still held that playful earnest look Tony remembered so well, now. And Pepper…her hair was more silver than copper, but damn, if she wasn’t the most beautiful thing, still, that he had ever seen on any world.

“Petey!” Morgan squealed, dropped her screwdriver and fairly leaped into his arms. 

“Hey, baby brain! I missed you.”

“Ditto! I was abandoned yesterday, and now I’m getting descended on.” She disentangled herself from him and hugged her mother. “I didn’t see you last night when you got in. How was the date?”

This was it. Tony was out of here, now, before he had to hear—“It sucked,” Pepper said. “I guess it’s me, they all suck.”

“Your standards are too high,” Morgan said with sudden softness. “Dad spoiled you for any other man.” Peter nodded vigorously. 

“I guess so.” The tender smile Tony knew so well danced across Pepper’s lips, spiked with a sad downturn to her eyes.

If Tony had had a body, it would have been in agony. The Blob hated it; he could feel its concern. _Let us go now, as you said_ , it agreed. _As much as it lies within my being to want anything, I do not want you to feel pain. We will go, and you can show me this place where mortals play at games, where we can feed and rest._

It was right; he needed to break away, to not come back, but he could not force himself to move. As he hesitated, the Blob’s focus was drawn away again by Morgan’s device—sometimes the entity was worse than a toddler with ADHD hyped up on sugar. Before he could gather his shattered thoughts and intervene, it activated the sensor again. Morgan swore and returned to the gadget. “I can’t figure out why it’s malfunctioning, Pete. It’s reacting like it’s being activated by something.”

“Are you sure it’s not?” Tony couldn’t tell if Peter was kidding her or not. “I mean, we did start on it because ghost hunters. Maybe there’s a ghost. We were just talking about Mr. Stark; maybe he’s here.”

“If he’s here, he almost knocked me on my ass a while ago,” Fury put in. “Knowing his less than favorable opinion of me in general, it would be in character. My granny used to talk about speaking things into existence. In a universe of aliens and gods, ghosts would surprise me not at all.”

Pepper looked torn between upset and longing. “I…would be okay with that,” she said after a long moment. “A chance to—to just know he was all right, somehow, somewhere, would be enough.”

“People! There are no…oof…ghosts…” Morgan argued while she wrestled with some intransigent bolt.

 _If they want a ‘ghost’ they shall have one_ , the Blob opined, and pressed itself and Tony fully against the sensor. It erupted in squeals and bursts of light. _This love you speak of, they feel it for you. You should take this opportunity to return it._

“It’s definitely picking something up!” Peter exclaimed. “Mr. Stark? Is—are you here, for real? Can you give us a signal?”

Tony was overwhelmed, caught up in the moment, in the impossibility of a last chance. He sank his awareness into the device, marveling at how elegantly constructed it was. His girl was something else, all right. He found the linkage for activation and tapped it with a delicate tendril of shared energy; the sensor went dark. Another tap, and it brightened. 

Pepper hugged herself, and Fury’s one eye widened. “Sounds intelligent to me,” he said. “Do you have a code for its use?”

“Yes!” Morgan burst out at the same time Peter said, “Uh, no, not really.” They began to argue, but Tony tuned them out, honing the accuracy of his contacts. He began to tap, on, off, on, on…

“What’s it doing?” Peter asked. “Morse code?”

“I don’t think so…oh! It’s binary!” Morgan started to figure it up on her fingers. _Good girl_ , Tony thought, warm approval washing through his essence. _You’ll get this._

He knew she had when she let out a small, choked cry. “Morg? What is it?” Peter reached for her. She pulled up a holoscreen and typed the binary quickly in. When the translation popped up, she turned to him with something between awe and horror in her face. 

**01101001 01101100 01110101 101110111000**

And beneath that, the translation:

**ilu 3000**

Pepper looked up at the readout and went white. She swayed, and Tony reflexively reached out with hands he no longer had to catch her. Thankfully, Fury was right there and did. At the dazed look in her eyes, and the way she whispered, _“Tony,_ ” the wave of emotion driving him receded and left him numb. 

_Fuck, fuck, I shouldn’t have done this. Pep was always right, I never did have any impulse control._

Tears filled Morgan’s big dark eyes. “Dad?” she breathed. “Daddy, are you here?” 

Peter folded her in his arms. “If anybody could find a way back, you know it’d be him, Morg. He loved you more than anything.”

“I love you, Daddy. I love you three thousand, always…” She buried her face in Peter’s chest.

Tony could almost feel himself shaking. How in fuck could he be having an anxiety attack when he didn’t even have a body anymore? Fury was grabbing a chair and easing Pepper down, the slackness of her shock giving way to tears too. “Tony, if you’re here, somehow,” she got out, “we all love you so much, we never stopped, and we never will.”

 _Oh, I fucked up, one more time._ Tony hit the sensor again, his signals less precise now. _I’m sorry, so sorry, I promise I’ll never pull shit like this again, I’ll leave you alone._

As soon as the new round of beeps started, Morgan tore away from Peter and rushed back over, transcribing frantically.

**01110011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001**

**sorry**

**01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010**

**never**

“No. _No,_ Daddy. Don’t dare say you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for!” Morgan sobbed.

Tony jerked away, disengaged from the device. _I’ve ruined everything. Blob, buddy, can’t you just end me, right now? I can’t stay here, and I can’t leave them, this—it hurts too damn much!_

_I do not understand. Did you not yield up your physical body so they could be safe and at peace?_

_Yeah, and they were, and now they aren’t. Shit, look at them, look what I’ve done to them, they were okay until I had to stick my ass in and make it all about me. I couldn’t fucking leave well enough alone, and I’d rather just—stop, than have to remember this, even knowing I’ll forget it someday. Just—let me go. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, I hate to pay you back this way. Absorb me, if you can do that. I’ll…I’ll be all right. They’ll never know. Please._

The Blob was silent for what felt like an eternity. Around them, the uproar increased. Morgan had her tools in hand again, and was furiously working at the innards of her gadget. “Tony?” Pepper sounded desolate now, devastated, and she had been making it, she’d been all right until he came back. He wished he could end himself, in that instant; he’d given nobody back their due for what they had given him over the years. “Can you hear me? Are you here? Morg, why isn’t he…”

“While I’m open to extreme possibilities,” Fury put in, “it’s prudent to rule out the less extreme ones before we jump to conclusions. Morgan, how sure are you that this is actual communication, and not a glitch in your systems?”

“What are the chances a _glitch in my system_ would know the last words my dad said to me?” she snapped, tussling with a switch.

“And the chances it’s intelligent but not—not Stark?”

“See my previous answer, Uncle Nick.” She jerked a wire out and repositioned it, her tongue half poking out.

“Is he gone?” Peter bit his lip, plainly fighting for composure. 

“I don’t know,” Morgan panted. “Maybe he doesn’t have enough energy to close the circuit. I’m hooking up the polarity-reversal application now, and we’ll see if he can draw from it. You hear me, daddy? Don’t go anywhere, please, I’ll have something in a second.” Sure enough, in a moment or two, Tony could feel a wave of new ions sweeping through the room. He wanted to pull it in, use it to reach out to them again, but he couldn’t keep torturing them. The eagerness in every face, even Fury’s, was unbearable. Why carry on like this, when he knew he wasn’t going to ever be back here—

 _Correction. You **can** go back_, the Blob commented mildly.

Tony’s thought processes stuttered to a complete halt. _Go back? How the hell am I supposed to do that? I know you don’t have a grasp on the ins and outs of physical existence, that’s not your fault, but it’s been ten years. You were there, when I died. My body was fried from the stones, it couldn’t support life anymore. That’s why you pulled my—essence, soul, whatever this is—out, remember? Even if it had lasted this long, even if I knew where it was, it’s bones and dust now._

The response the Blob returned was the equivalent of a massive eyeroll. _I know that. I’m not entirely ignorant. That body is gone, but there are plenty of organic compounds within easy reach._ With a sweep of a tendril, it ‘pointed’ to the wood and grass and water and soil all around the shed. _Why you would wish this, I admit I cannot comprehend. Why trade what you have had for the short and rough span of a mortal? But, if it is what you wish, I can give it to you, for the sake of all you have shared with me. With all this additional energy, it should be simple to arrange into a physical form capable of containing your soul, if you guide me._

Was this even possible? Would it be one more gambit that broke the hearts of the ones he loved more than his own life? At this instant, Tony was desperate enough to try anything. _Okay…okay. I’m male, so more like those two_ , he began, indicating Fury and Peter. _Younger than the older one—oh wait, that doesn’t compute with you—_ He dragged his thoughts into order and started to explain, as quickly as he could, the aging of organs, the needs of each, and how they connected, as well as he could without an MD after his name. He spotted something across the room and shot over to it, barely believing his fortune. _Here, this’ll help_ , he told the Blob, and indicated the framed photograph of himself and Peter, taken the day he gave Peter his ‘official’ SI internship certificate. _That’s me, on the left._

After another moment of struggling to explain, Tony just reached into his recollection of that day, how it felt. He hauled out the memory of having a body, and shared it with the Blob. it wasn’t easy; it had been so long, but he managed, and wrapped it around himself, fingers and toes and eyes and ears, the pain and joy and need and yearning, and _love_ , so damn much love he thought he might go supernova just from remembering it.

The world whited out around him, blinding him. There was an impact, odd-feeling after all this time in a disembodied form; then pressure, and pain, not the emotional discomfort he had felt moments before, but actual physical tightness, in a specific place he could localize. His chest hurt, and after a stunned moment, he relieved it, by doing something he had forgotten how to do, because he hadn’t had to do it in years.

He took a breath. It was a shaky, hacky thing, but it was a breath, that filled his lungs—he had lungs again, and felt his heart pounding, and cool concrete against his cheek. _Fuck, did it work? More to the point, I forgot to think about clothes, please, anybody who’s listening, don’t let me be butt-naked in front of Nick Fury!_

A quick appraisal told him he did have some sort of clothing on, which was a relief. The area around him was dead silent, though, and he spared a thought to worrying that he had landed someplace totally different from the shed. That worry only lasted another beat, before a sob reached his ears and a body hit his. _“Daddy!!”_

Tony’s eyes popped open to find a heap of weeping teenage girl in his arms, and he thought he might just die of joy on the spot. “Morgoona,” he crooned and gathered her close, his baby girl who had saved him from marauding superheroes as a toddler, and saved him again now. “I’m here, sweetie, I’m here.” She lifted her head and for the first time he was able to look directly into her face, red eyes and runny nose and all. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered in shaky wonder. “I always knew you would be. You take after your mom.”

“Best of both, I’d say,” came Pepper’s voice from somewhere behind him. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder; Morgan wriggled aside and he rolled over where he lay on the workshop floor. _Ow, maybe I should’ve asked the Blob to take a decade or so off this old bod._ He was wearing jeans and an old t-shirt, so his mind had apparently gone into its virtual closet and pulled out his default daily wear.

“That’s up for debate,” he retorted, relearning enough coordination to get to his hands and knees and crawl over to the chair where Pep sat frozen. “Now look what I do for you, Potts. As if I’d humiliate myself in front of Nick Fury for anybody else.”

Her eyes locked onto his, and she didn’t budge until he sat back on his heels and put his hands on her thighs. Damn, it felt so good to touch her. Tony grinned, and that felt good too; hell, just having a face again felt good. She looked caught between smiling back, and crying. “That’s the last thing I remember seeing,” he said softly. “You trying to smile, to tell me you’d all be okay, to let me down easy…”

That broke her composure. One hand flew to her mouth, and then both came down over his, and a cracked little sob escaped her. She slid from the seat, down into his lap, crying in earnest. Tony wrapped his arms around her, rocking back and forth and kissing her wet cheek. Morgan scooted in, one arm around each of them, and the joy he had thought at its max ratcheted up even higher. 

An uneasy shuffle of feet penetrated their little bubble at last. “Um, maybe you and I better leave?” Peter murmured, evidently to Fury.

Tony lifted his head. “Oh, no, you don’t. Hold it right there, underoos.” Pepper, her face alight now, clambered to her feet and put out a hand for Tony. Standing was harder than he had anticipated. “Oof, this bipedal thing was not well thought through. Clearly I need to send a strongly worded email to the designer. Out of practice, that’s all…” With one more grunt, and his wife and daughter on either side, he took his first steps, unsteady, but adequate to get him where he needed to be. “If you think you’re gonna bail on me, you are about to be seriously disappointed.”

A faint remembrance of Peter’s face twisted in grief, his voice breaking, begging Tony to hang on, came to his mind. That boy was gone now, had become this young man before him, and Tony felt sure that extremity of loss was gone too. Except that it wasn’t. Their eyes met and Peter’s were spilling over with tears, just like that day. “Mr. Stark…”

“Hey, wait a minute, I thought we had gotten to _Tony_ , before, you know…” The rest of Tony’s attempt at snark was cut short when Peter lunged into his arms. Tony pulled him in, rubbed his back and planted a kiss on the side of his head, the way he had that awful day in the middle of a battlefield. They had barely had a moment when the snapped had returned, just long enough for Tony to register that the kid was back, that a piece of his own heart had slotted back into place, before throwing themselves back into the fray that had ended with Tony’s death. Now, they could make up for it. It pained Tony to have lost ten years, but better that than never get anything back at all.

Peter straightened after a few moments, sniffling and trying to apologize (”I’ve heard enough _I’m sorry’s_ out of you to last several lifetimes, Parker, so zip it”). Pepper and Morgan were hugging each other with matching goofy grins plastered across their faces. 

A sudden tingle lifted the fine hairs on the nape of Tony’s neck. “Blob? That you?” He pointed toward Morgan’s gadget. “Remember how I accessed it. Let’s keep it simple; one peep for yes and two for no, okay?” After a few seconds, a single bleep answered. “Yeah, okay. Listen…thanks, for everything. There’s nothing I can do to repay you, just…thanks.” 

The device clicked and popped; then rows of binary began to appear on the holoscreen with translation underneath. _Sure, it has to show off_ , Tony chuckled to himself. **YOU TAUGHT ME TONY. I NEED NO RECOMPENSE. I GO NOW. BE HAPPY. I WILL RETURN.**

Morgan watched with wide eyes. “I’ll leave the device set up,” she pitched her voice out into the room. “And I can add a record function, so if nobody is around you can leave us a message. Thank you for—for bringing my daddy back.”

There was no reply, not that Tony expected one. “It’s not very sociable,” he explained. “I think I was the first company it had had in a pretty damn long time. I’ll explain later. Right now, I think I heard supper was under discussion? I haven’t eaten in ten years and I could devour a moose. FRIDAY? Hey, remember me?”

“Indeed I do, boss.” Was it his imagination, or did the AI almost sound choked up? “I can’t begin to tell you how good it is to hear your voice again.”

Fury stood taking it all in. “Motherfucker,” he said warmly. “I might have known, if any damn body could figure out how to come back from the dead, it’d be you.”

Tony shrugged. “Got a certain reputation to maintain. Which reminds me, exactly what are you doing here? Because I could probably convince you that I resurrected myself just to keep you from bothering my family.”

“Um, I gave him a ride?” Peter offered. 

“It’s fine, dad, really,” Morgan added. "He's been a big help."

Fury just looked mildly amused. “Okay, okay, he can stay for supper, but no talking shop,” Tony grumbled.

(They did end up talking shop, if you counted filling each other in on the last ten years, and debating who needed to know Tony was alive and who didn’t. Fury argued for the bare minimum number. Of course he did; his secrets still had secrets.)

(The need-to-know list started with Happy, Harley and Rhodey. Happy nearly danced with joy. Harley hollered, and Rhodey fainted.)

**Author's Note:**

> It's far from being the most creative fix-it, I suppose, but I was glad to finally get an idea that left Endgame as it was but still brought Tony back! Hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Title from the classic Doobie Brothers song of the same name, a haunting thing I've wanted to use in an MCU fic for ages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt6AyIYKAjs
> 
> DUM-E is okay btw! Morgan thought something was wrong with his wiring and she wasn't good enough to find it...but really, he's just depressed. <3 U is at Peter's workshop.
> 
> Natasha being honored as a goddess who sees souls safely into the afterlife was borrowed from Valentine's lovely short, I Hope They Remember You. https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648307
> 
> And one other plot element of this short was borrowed from the best Endgame fix-it out there bar none, Lazarus Come Forth by iron_spider. I hesitate to point out the specific line in my fic, however, because it's slightly spoilerish for the original and the reveal in LCF is so darn cute. So I recommend you go read that, and see if you spot my teeny homage. :) https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183011


End file.
